Archaeologists have unearthed in northern Israel what might be the world's oldest -- and largest -- wine cellar.

Researchers estimate the cellar is more than 3,000 years old, dating back to about 1,700 B.C. It was found inside an ancient ruined palace in the western Galilee region of Israel, in an area now used for growing banana and avocado trees.

Inside the ancient cellar, archaeologists found 40 large jars, each of which would have held 50 litres of strong, sweet wine. The 40 jars would have had a capacity of roughly 2,000 litres, meaning the cellar could have held the equivalent of nearly 3,000 bottles of wine.

Sadly, all the wine was long since gone, but many of the jars were almost perfectly intact.

"This is a hugely significant discovery -- it's a wine cellar that, to our knowledge, is largely unmatched in age and size," says Eric Cline, the chair of the Department of Classical and Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at George Washington University.

Researchers working on the site in the ancient city of Tel Kabri say the palace was used for an extended time during the Middle Bronze Age and then abandoned for reasons that are still unknown and never re-occupied.

The team used carbon dating to determine the age of the jars that were found, a technique that finds the approximate age of artifacts by measuring the amount of carbon that has decayed.

Andrew Koh, assistant professor of classical studies at Brandeis University, analyzed the jar fragments using organic residue analysis and found traces of tartaric and syringic acid, both key components in wine. He also found compounds suggesting other ingredients that were popular in ancient wine-making were used, including honey, mint, cinnamon bark, juniper berries and resins.

The recipe is similar to medicinal wines used in ancient Egypt for 2,000 years.

Koh also analyzed the proportions of each diagnostic compound and discovered remarkable consistency between jars. He says that suggests that the winemakers followed a precise recipe and followed it to the letter.

"This wasn't moonshine that someone was brewing in their basement, eyeballing the measurements," Koh notes. "This wine's recipe was strictly followed in each and every jar."

The team's findings were presented Friday in Baltimore at the annual meeting of the American Schools of Oriental Research.

Assaf Yasur-Landau, chair of the Department of Maritime Civilizations at the University of Haifa, says it's likely that important guests drank the wine.

"The wine cellar was located near a hall where banquets took place, a place where the Kabri elite and possibly foreign guests consumed goat meat and wine," he says.

The Tel Kabri site was first excavated in 1986, when archeologists discovered a building with a floor and wall frescoes painted in an Aegean manner.Excavation work has been ongoing at the site ever since.

As researchers excavated at the site this past summer, they uncovered a metre-long jar, later christened “Bessie.”

“We dug and dug, and all of a sudden, Bessie’s friends started appearing -- five, 10, 15, ultimately 40 jars packed in a 15-by-25-foot storage room,” Cline said in a statement.

In 2015, the dig team hopes to continue their dig work by following two doors leading out of the wine cellar, which they are likely to lead to additional storage rooms.

The excavation work is being funded by grants from National Geographic, the Israel Science Foundation (ISF), the Institute for Aegean Prehistory and several private donors.